Epilogue
Irena
The moment of finally moving out of the med bay and into Flack’s private quarters was tantalizingly close.
I paced inside the white, pristine room as I waited for the doctor to finish his last tests before Flack got officially discharged.
It was a little bizarre to have traded my fear of the med bay on the Vidu for an extended stay in one aboard the Varakartoom.
The truth was, the places couldn’t be more different.
Everything aboard Flack’s ship was pristine and in top working condition.
This was courtesy of a whole legion of advanced cleaning bots, as well as their brilliant engineer, Ysa—an alien woman with azure skin and a braid so long that, when unspooled, it would drag along the floor.
She was impressive, intimidating, and surprisingly sweet, and, much to my shock, the one out of all the kind women on this ship I’d had an instant click with.
So it was Ysa who sat on the bunk across from me, swinging her clunky black combat boots back and forth like a kid, her skull-and-crossbones earrings gleaming in her ears.
“He’s fine. Flack’s a terrible patient, and not the fastest healer compared to some, but he’s also terribly strong.
” Ysa’s pep talk made me smile because her eyes twinkled, and I knew she was remembering the exact same moment I was: Flack bucknaked next to the medical cot when he first woke, not a sight anyone was likely to forget.
When I’d first been sent down to Flack’s prison cell to bring him food, I’d been convinced he was a serial killer, a ruthless murderer.
I’d been so worn down by the daily fear and hunger I’d been forced to endure that a better future had been hard to imagine.
Even harder to imagine were people who were nice, or did good things out of the goodness of their hearts.
While I suspected that most of the people—the mercenaries—would never be considered good, they were… kind. In their own weird ways.
Flack was a terrible patient because he was impatient, kept flirting with me while the doctor tried to do his job, and kept trying to slip out of the med bay or shift before he was ready.
Apparently, all Sune were like that, unable to hold back a shift for long.
It made them very very antsy. Because of this, I suspected Dravion kept him under his supervision longer.
That didn’t keep the rest of the crew from visiting for rowdy Keflo games, bartering, and storytelling.
The stories were often as fantastical and sometimes as gory as the things Dimon had told me of Flack’s reputation.
“Oh, lookielook, Ira,” Ysa said. She’d dubbed me that jokingly and told me the name similarities meant we were meant to be sisters.
The woman pointed at the other medical room, where the human woman, the assassin, was still confined to a bed.
If Flack was a terrible patient, she was downright a nightmare: furious, fighting, screaming, and desperate to escape when awake, and on the brink of death so often I thought Dravion would never be able to bring her back.
He had, though, with a kind of dogged determination that had caught even his crewmates by surprise, as if he was unwilling to let her go.
The woman had woken again and begun screaming and fighting her restraints.
Somehow, though human, she kept rousing too early from whatever drugs Dravion was forced to use to make her sleep.
The doctor rushed out of his office, where he’d been checking Flack, across the med bay, and dove onto his unwilling patient with none of his usual grace.
He needed the help of both guards to subdue her, and I could hear him swear—something I’d been told he never did.
“Oh oh,” Flack drawled as he slipped out of the office.
“Sounds like the assassin tore her stitches again.” He was, for the first time since he’d woken up, finally without the clunky cast around his leg.
Which meant… “Yes, clean bill of health, sweetheart.” Healed from a broken leg, a dozen fractures in his ribs, and a serious concussion in a matter of days.
I was impressed; Flack could hardly complain.
He swept me into his arms, and ignoring Ysa’s smirking presence, kissed the living daylights out of me.
I let him, because he wasn’t the only one in a celebratory mood.
All this time, I’d refused to leave his side.
This was my chance to finally see the rest of the ship.
The truth was, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit this, I was scared to see what Flack’s home was truly like.
What if it wasn’t as good as I hoped? What if it was?
Life on the Vidu hadn’t exactly taught me to believe there was a safe place out here.
It had only shown me danger, and how the life I’d known on Earth was so far out of reach it might as well not exist.
But the Vidu was gone, and so was the assassin’s ship.
It was time to put it in the past, to put aside the fear, and to trust in a future.
Under the sound of Ysa loudly catcalling, Flack swept me into his arms and carried me from the med bay.
I wasn’t quite prepared for what a mercenary vessel looked like on the inside, and rainbows on the walls, used as guides, certainly weren’t what I expected.
There were cheerful calls and more whistling from anyone we passed in the hallway, and then silence when we entered Flack’s den.
“You’re mine now, mate,” he warned me, his grin fox-like and sparkling with mischief.
I smiled back, my hand touching my scarred cheek, not because it made me feel bad, but because it made me feel strong.
This time, his kiss wasn’t just a little tease and show; it was a full-blown claim.
I didn’t even get a chance to look at what his home was like.
“I have been dying to get you alone for days, you little tease,” he drawled against my neck.
My back collided with a soft mattress, and I sank deep, pressed into the surface by the weight of his body as he pinned me.
I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d been dying to get him alone myself; that would only encourage him.
We rolled, and I relished the closeness, for once without possible interruptions or watching eyes.
Of course, he still ended up on top again, but now my head was nearly dangling over the edge of the bed.
He kissed me, and his hand found the back of my head, gently cupping it to hold me up.
It was a warm reminder that Flack, my Flack, always wanted to look out for me.
I’d come to learn over the past few days that this trait was specific to me.
He was neither nice, flirty, nor accommodating to anyone else.
I was pretty sure he even liked most of the people on this ship; it was just his nature not to let anyone in.
We were, in that sense, two peas in a pod.
“We are putting into the Yengar space station in three days,” he said, drawing me from my thoughts, and from the sensations of his mouth against mine again.
He did not lift enough to prevent his lips from brushing my skin as he spoke, and it made goosebumps break out all over my body, my nipples perking to tight peaks beneath my comfy, oversized T-shirt.
“I want you to make me a list of all the things you miss, all the things you need, and all the things you’ve ever fancied having. ”
He was dead serious. I pushed up on my elbows to stare at him.
“I told you I don’t need much,” I said. That offer, what felt like ages ago, had felt much like a way to try to seduce me into helping him.
It was different now, because now I already had the things I’d wanted most: freedom, safety, a man to love whom I knew would always protect me.
I shrugged because I wanted to decline again; my luck was going to run out if I was greedy.
I’d upset the balance or something. That was a silly superstition, but I couldn’t help fearing it.
Flack rose from the bed, and I admired his body as he walked away.
He wasn’t wearing the same black armor and boots as before.
Here, on the ship and off-duty, he wore softer black pants and a simple sleeveless shirt.
He still looked hot. Then he dragged the pants I’d just been thinking about out of a wardrobe and held them up.
With a triumphant smirk, he fished something out of a pocket, his hands so quick I couldn’t quite see what he’d done.
He held it up, and the light caught it—one hundred pink-hued rainbows dancing across the wall and ceiling.
Holy crap, he’d managed to keep hold of the Verana Diamond all along?
How was that possible? I was certain it had been lost in space somewhere in the wreckage of the Vidu.
Flack’s grin was so smug that I narrowed my eyes at him.
“As you can see, money is not an issue. Let me give you everything your heart desires,” he said.
He dropped the diamond casually on the floor by the bed, then pulled me back into his arms.
“I already have everything I want,” I said.
“I have you. Home, like you once said. That’s all I need.
” He petted my shoulder, drawing his fingers along my skin down to my hand, then pulled my fingers to rest against his chest. He had an expression on his face that was more peaceful than any other I’d seen, and that made me happy.
“You know, my father, a Ukrainian immigrant, died when I was young, but the one thing he gave me was my name. My mom used to tell me what it meant, and that this was his greatest wish for me.”
“What does it mean?” Flack asked, intrigued.
“Precious? Beautiful? Beloved?” He punctuated each word with a kiss, and for a moment I lost my train of thought.
He was a master at this; I could not forget it.
We were both guarded, but not with each other, and the last kiss made me feel like we flowed together—passion matching passion, and love matching love.
“Peace,” I whispered. “My name means peace.” That was what I’d found when I gave my trust to him.
It was the reward waiting for us at the end of this adventure, not that diamond, not money, not even chocolate or books and art, all the things I’d loved in my past life.
One look at Flack’s happy eyes and I knew we’d have all those things anyway, but he needed peace as much as I did.
“To me,” he murmured, “you’ll always be home, little Tikai.
” I was very happy to be his home, as I knew he was mine.
After that, there was no more talking, not for a while.
Just the reminder that Flack was not just a man, but something else entirely.
This was our first time coming together after that intense time in the Vidu’s brig, and he reminded me right away of something he’d said then: I can adjust my size.
I had not realized at all what that had meant at the time, but I did now.
As he freed his cock and yanked my leggings down my thighs, he hardly gave me any time to adjust or prepare.
Not that I wasn’t wet, or turned on, I was.
But he was fierce and demanding as he yanked me into place on the bed and lined us up, his cock sinking into me in one rough thrust. I thought it would be too much; it had been days, after all, but it wasn’t. I took him easily, and then I saw why.
His cock was not nearly so big now, but as I propped myself up on my elbows to stare, he began growing.
His hips eased in and out of me as we both stared, fascinated, at the way his cock filled me more and more with each thrust. His mouth curled into a smirk when I counted the dots that lined his shaft out loud.
“They didn’t change in number; I just changed my length.
” He raised one brow. “Almost back to full size already, you take me so well. Can you take more?”
He rolled us, forcing me astride him like last time, and my clit found marvelous pressure against his hips.
“Lie down,” he urged, arms curling around me, pinning me snugly to his sleek body.
It became a blur after that—pleasure and more pleasure.
His cock, as promised, filling me more and more as he tested my limits with a kind of patience that nearly broke me.
I must have come at least half a dozen times before he finally followed me over the edge.
With no need to be silent, either, his growl vibrated against my chest and made the shelves that lined the wall above his bed rattle.
Going limp on top of him, we remained like that, and I pondered how strange life had turned out.
I never thought something good would come out of my abduction, out of being auctioned off like cattle, but here I was.
Flack was the best thing that ever happened to me, and now his question was stuck in my brain: what do you like?
He wanted to buy me gifts, because that’s how he took care of those he loved.
I’d seen that in the “deals” he’d been striking all week with his steady stream of med bay visitors.
Perhaps it was time to remind myself of those passions from my life on Earth.
One thing was certain: Flack would make sure I found out eventually.
“I love you,” I whispered. His hand came down to stroke along my back, all the way down to my rear this time. It reminded me of the touch-starved reaction I’d had to him the first time he’d done that.
“And I love you, Irena.”